By Dr. Nadiya Sunderji
In any given year, one in five people in Canada will personally experience a mental health problem or illness and recent research from CMHA Ontario shows nearly half of Ontarians say their mental health has worsened since the pandemic began. As I begin my new role as President and CEO of Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene, it is a time of extraordinary need and opportunity.
I joined Waypoint in 2019 as Vice-President Medical Affairs and Chief of Staff after spending a number of years at St. Michael’s Hospital as a psychiatrist, clinical leader, and research scientist. Since coming to Waypoint and despite the pandemic, there have been successes to celebrate as we further the hospital’s journey to collaborate with patients, families, our expert team and community partners on quality improvement and more broadly on system transformation.
The last two years of pandemic response has given us the opportunity to really work together as one health care system, furthering collaboration when critical service needs had to be addressed.
Multiple partners including Waypoint worked with public health to open COVID-19 assessment centres and immunization clinics, and support long-term care partners. Waypoint took additional patients needing mental health care to free up inpatient and emergency department beds in acute care hospitals. Pressures for acute mental health beds and psychiatric intensive care services remain and we continue to operate 14 additional beds for patients from across the Ontario Health Central Region.
Addressing gaps in services for families, children and youth has been a goal regionally for many years, and the need has only grown during the pandemic. With support from the Ministry of Health, Waypoint expanded services in an innovative collaborative care model with primary care and community mental health partners across our region. Services cover the full spectrum of mental health conditions for infants to transitional age youth (youth who would be entering the adult system) in a trauma informed, family-focused setting. Our small but growing team of specialists recently launched urgent care services and a virtual on-call service to support the region.
The pandemic taught us how to innovate quickly. Waypoint implemented a virtual intensive day program for concurrent disorders to support people with addiction and mental health challenges when inpatient care was not available. We will continue to work with our patients, families and partners on innovation to achieve the best possible outcomes and experience.
All hospitals are focused on employee wellness as serious concerns for burnout and staffing have worsened with the pandemic. Waypoint is one of five hospitals across Ontario offering the Frontline Wellness program, a service that connects all health care workers across the sector (including first responders and those in residential settings such as long-term care) with supports and navigation to services to help manage mental health challenges. Frontline Wellness is part of Waypoint’s extensive employee wellness program. Thanks to an innovation grant, Waypoint’s wellness team has developed a toolkit for Central Ontario Region hospitals, which we hope to spread throughout the sector. It promotes a stepped care framework to support the health and wellbeing of all healthcare staff and connect those with more intensive needs to provincial mental health resources.
There are still many gaps to fill and the Central Ontario Health Team (OHT) for Specialized Populations is focused on coordinated access and system integration. Waypoint is one of ten agencies working together to provide specialized services focusing on mental health and addictions including children, youth and adults, seniors and their caregivers, and Indigenous populations.
Through collaboration with other OHTs serving local populations, the goal is to improve access and build capacity for better care. This innovative model builds on existing collaborations, avoids fragmentation of specialized services, ensures there is a critical mass needed to deliver specialized services, and supports the identification of service efficiencies so that resources can be re-allocated to address service gaps. We believe our OHT provides an exemplar for the future of specialized services in an increasingly integrated healthcare system.
As we move towards pandemic recovery, I look forward to working with patients, families, staff, and local, regional and provincial partners to use new tools and partnerships to improve services for people who need mental health and addictions treatment and care.
Dr. Nadiya Sunderji became Waypoint President and CEO on June 13, 2022. She is a psychiatrist with nearly 20 years of leadership experience. She is also an Associate Professor in the Division of Adult Psychiatry and Health Systems in the Department of Psychiatry at University of Toronto.
